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Colorado Springs, city (1990 pop. 281,140), seat of El Paso co., central Colo., on Monument and Fountain creeks, at the foot of Pikes Peak; inc. 1886. It is a year-round resort and a booming military, technological, and commercial city. Electronic, computer, mining, and aerospace manufactures are important economically.
The town of El Dorado (later Colorado City) was founded on Fountain Creek by gold miners in 1859. In 1871, Gen. William Palmer and the Denver and Rio Grande RR established the city of Fountain Colony nearby; the modern name was adopted because of the many mineral springs in the area. Colorado Springs absorbed Colorado City in 1917. The city grew enormously in the late 20th cent.
The seat of Colorado College, a Univ. of Colorado branch, and Nazarene Bible College, Colorado Springs is also the site of a U.S. Olympic training center and the headquarters of Pike National Forest. The United States Air Force Academy is just north; also nearby are U.S. Fort Carson and Peterson Air Force Base, headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and a new cyberwarfare center.
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